“And now I’d like to call up Darby McLaughlin to join me.” Esme’s voice thundered across the room.
A sprinkling of claps covered the endless walk onto the stage. Darby positioned herself behind the backup singer’s mic. Esme counted off and launched into “The Bluest Blues.” At one point, she looked back at Darby and gave her an encouraging wave of her hand, which Darby knew meant that she should stop standing like a statue and move in time with the music. She bobbed her head, the best she could do under extreme circumstances.
She couldn’t see a thing out in front of her with the bright lights shining down from the ceiling. It was as if a black fog hovered just beyond the foot of the stage, and she welcomed the darkness, the inability to see people staring back at her.
Esme swiveled her head around. Darby had missed her cue. She joined in, shocked by the loudness of her voice, then pulled back from the mic a couple of inches, remembering Esme’s advice. The first chorus was over before she’d even had time to think.
She was prepared the second time, and matched Esme note for note. The bassist raised his eyebrows and gave her a solemn nod. By the third chorus, she had relaxed enough to let her shoulders dip from side to side in time with the beat. Esme finished with a flourish, holding the last note with no vibrato, a muscular sound that lifted the audience to its feet in appreciation.
“I want to thank everyone,” Esme said over the clapping, then listed the band members one by one. “And especially Darby here, who stepped in at the last moment and saved the day for us. Let’s give her a special round of applause.”
Darby curtsied. As if she were a debutante at a ball. Then turned beet red at her mistake. They trailed off the stage, Esme accepting the accolades of the patrons as though she were Cleopatra on the Nile. At the back of the room, Sam stood next to the door to the kitchen, still in his apron, staring at her. He put his hands to his lips to let out a loud whistle, which soared above the clamor. Darby gave a little wave before a press of well-wishers trying to get to Esme blocked her view.
When they finally got into the green room, Esme turned around and gave Darby a huge hug. She smelled like cinnamon and fresh laundry, unlike any woman Darby had ever known. Then again, she was unlike any other woman she’d ever known.
“You did it, Darby. We did it.”
Darby could only nod, unable to say out loud what she was feeling, a mixture of relief and giddiness.
From the couch, Tanya snored on.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
New York City, 2016
Twelve hours after the migraine struck, the pain finally passed. Rose had spent the entire night on the couch, raising her head for a sip of water only once, trying to breathe through the nausea in her gut and the pounding in her head. Now relief flooded through her body, and everything she usually took for granted, like sunlight and the sound of construction and traffic outside the windows, she welcomed with what could almost be called joy.
The apartment smelled yeasty and stale. She opened the windows and took a shower before heading out with the dog. Bird seemed as happy as she was to be outdoors, and didn’t charge any of the other dogs they passed on the narrow pathways in Central Park.
Rose made sure to enter and exit through the building’s service entrance, where the doormen were unlikely to engage her in conversation. When she turned down the hallway to Miss McLaughlin’s apartment, a woman with a walker clomped her way, stopping to let out a phlegmy cough.
As Rose drew closer, the woman regarded her with suspicion, one bushy gray eyebrow raised. “Who are you?”
“I’m the dog sitter for Miss McLaughlin.”
“Where’d she go?”
“I’m not sure. On vacation.”
“Darby never goes on vacation.”
“She’ll be back in a couple of weeks. I’m Rose.” She stuck out her hand and the woman gave her a limp handshake.
“Alice Wilcox.”
Bird sniffed the legs of her walker.
“Have you lived here long?” asked Rose.
Alice laughed. “I came to the hotel in the sixties. Long enough.”
“And do you know Miss McLaughlin well?”
“Nope. Keeps to herself. But I don’t like that dog. Barks too much. ’Specially when she comes home after midnight.”
“Does Miss McLaughlin often stay out late?” Seemed strange for an octogenarian.
“Sure does. She goes out in the evening, dressed all fancy, and returns home at one A.M., sometimes. Damn dog barks when she comes home and it wakes me up. I’ve talked to her, but she just nods in that weird way of hers. Not very neighborly.”
“I’ll try to keep the dog quiet for you.”
As they chatted on, Alice eventually recognized Rose from the news and agreed to be interviewed for the WordMerge story.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so difficult after all.
Rose thanked her and stuck the key in the lock of Miss McLaughlin’s front door. Instead of continuing on to the elevator, Alice turned around and clomped slowly back. “I’m doing my laps,” she said by way of explanation.
Rose nodded and ducked inside.
As she made coffee, she heard voices in the hallway and stuck her ear to the door. The doors were cheap, not like the ones in the renovated apartments, and the conversation rang clear.
“Who are you?” Alice appeared to have resumed her guard duty.
A young woman’s voice explained that she was Stella’s grandniece, Susan, and she was picking up some of her things. Stella would be staying with her and her husband in New Jersey while she recuperated.
Rose stepped out into the hallway and introduced herself. Susan wore dangly gold earrings, skinny jeans, and a friendly smile.
“Stella asked me to take care of a neighbor’s dog while she was away,” Rose explained. “How is she doing?”
“She’ll be fine. She thought it was something to do with her nerves, but it was a heart condition. They caught it early, thank God, but she needs to take it easy. I’ll be stopping by to get her mail and water her plants. Since I work in the city, it’s easy enough.”
“Tell her I said to get well soon, and that I’ll take care of the dog in the meantime.”
Rose retreated back into the apartment and leaned against the door. She shouldn’t be in here; she was risking the story, her job. Miss McLaughlin might even call the police when she found out. But she hadn’t stolen the key. Stella had given it to her, then an emergency had come up. And who else was going to take care of her damn dog?
The ceiling creaked above her. Griff must be home, with Connie. They were probably wandering through the apartment, figuring out where their divan would go, how quickly she could replace the king-size bed. Rose had been reduced to a memory. She wanted to throw her head back and scream at the ceiling, release all her pent-up anger at him for not knowing his mind better, for having fallen in and out of love so quickly. She should have been more wary of him, but he was a force of nature. It was part of what made him so good at his job. She’d been sucked in by his charm.
In any case, she was alone. She’d end up like Darby, living in a cave, no family left to worry about her or care for her. When sad-old-lady Rose, homeless and ancient, hobbled down the street, young women would look away quickly, worried that her fate would be theirs. She’d add a catalog of physical pains to her mental anguish until she petered out, unceremoniously.
Jesus, she sounded pathetic. She gave herself a good mental shake and resolved to think positive. It’d been a week since Griff had blown up their life, and who knew what the future held? She didn’t do herself any good sulking around like a petulant teenager. Back in high school, when she’d flung herself facedown on the couch after getting a less than flattering haircut, her father had drily observed: “At least you have two arms and two legs.”